


Counting Down

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: (they still die oops), Alternate Ending, Depressing, Hive!Grant, S3 spoilers, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 02:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7782676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate ending in which three minutes are left until the warhead detonates. Hive and Lincoln have no one else to spend their last moments with, so they have a nice talk about life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Down

**Author's Note:**

> I'm bad at summaries so I tried to make it a lil funny??? anyways I just watched the finale and omggg the Jesus symbolism was incredible but the scene at the end with Hive and Lincoln dying together just didn't feel complete, so I decided to write my own version. only posting this bc it's not sin and idk someone might enjoy ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ anyway

“They're only human…” Lincoln muttered, watching the cross float out of his hand and join the weightless drops of his own blood. 

“They could have been so much more.” 

Ward's eyes were trained on the planet in front of them as he spoke, too captivated to move. “You could have been better, too- everyone can be better. I guess when you're trying to enslave most of humanity there's plenty of room for improvement,” Lincoln growled. “It's no one's fault, but yours.”

“The Kree created me,” he retorted. 

“The Kree,” he choked on a sob briefly before trying to continue. “The Kree didn't try to destroy the very thing they wanted to connect with. Haven't you had enough?”

“Lincoln, don't you forget what you're talking to. You think I'm in some perpetual need for power, and that I must consume everything in order to be satisfied-”

“A whole planet. The portal took them to… another planet. One you destroyed.” Lincoln's eyes broke their hold on the Earth briefly to glower at Ward.

“They destroyed themselves because they could not connect. In any other moment, I have no doubt you'd try to destroy me. I don't need to wonder why you aren't doing that now. We have a connection here.”

A single tear floated off of his cheek and over to his hand where he grabbed it and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. The cross began to drift in Ward's direction, too close to his hand. It seemed he could just swat it away then and there, but he didn't. Lincoln quickly took notice of his action and glanced at the timer on the warhead. 

“One and a half minutes left to live…Atheists would start praying.”

“The threat of death is powerful enough to drop nearly any man to his knees. Will prayed for Jemma to come back. Grant never saw the point to such things- he boasted his lack of fear for death. I know, in his dying breath, that he thought of faith… I've never needed it. I always thought I was so invincible.”

Lincoln wanted to reach out for the cross, but fount himself grabbing Ward's wrist instead. He brought it to his face and examined it with weary eyes and bloodied fingertips. It all seemed so real to him- every hair and freckle and rigid scar that stood out in its skin. Too human. 

“Death doesn't just separate, Lincoln. The lower that number gets, the stronger the connection is.”

One minute. 

He closed his eyes and drew three long breaths. Nothing could prepare him. The feeling in his gut was comparable to that of being forced to slam on the brakes, but it wouldn't be over in a second. It would be over in 60.

“If that explosion had killed me, I wouldn't be stuck with you,” Lincoln grunted, pushing his arm away.

“Then you couldn't have seen this,” Hive said, gesturing to the planet beneath them.”

20 seconds of pure silence, 30 more seconds to live. 

“All that matters is I've saved them from you.”

“If that's what you want to think…”

10 seconds.

“I'll never know if Daisy heard me.”

“That doesn't matter. She loved you.” 

3 seconds. Without thinking, Lincoln grabbed his hand and forced his eyes shut. He thought back to the cross, yet he was practically a dead man already. Barely a second left before he'd have nothing left, and one last thought crossed his mind; ‘Have some faith.’

 


End file.
